Caroline Starmer leaves Leicester Crown Court, where she pleaded guilty to charge of intending to pervert the course of justice after claiming that a Primark security guard removed her baby as she was breastfeeding in a store. Picture: Joe Giddens/PA Wire

Share

Get weekly updates directly to your inbox

Thank you for subscribing!

Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email

A mother has avoided jail after lying about a Primark security guard taking her baby from her while she was breastfeeding.

Caroline Starmer, 28, posted on Facebook that the guard took her nine-month-old daughter from her on July 13 at the store in Humberstone Gate, Leicester.

After the shop checked its CCTV and found no such incident took place, Starmer was charged with perverting the course of justice.

Sentencing her to eight months in prison suspended for two years, Judge Simon Hammond told Leicester Crown Court she had avoided jail "by a whisker".

The judge said: "She has done a gross disservice to the many mothers who are breastfeeding and rely on shops and other public facilities to allow them to breastfeed their babies in privacy and dignity.

"By a whisker, you have avoided going to prison today.

"This is a very serious case of perverting the course of justice. What the defendant did was carefully planned and orchestrated for financial gain."

The court heard that Starmer visited the Primark store on July 13 with her twins, then aged nine months.

She went to the children's clothing section where she sat and started to breastfeed one baby, paid for her shopping and left the store.

That same day, Starmer phoned her husband and said that while she had been feeding, a security guard had told her to stop and "ripped the baby from her breast".

She repeated the allegation on a Facebook site called Free To Feed.

The story was then widely reported in the media and in interviews she claimed a male security guard grabbed the child from her.

The story was shared more than 5,000 times on Facebook and featured in news bulletins as far afield as Japan and New Zealand, prosecutor Tina Dempster told the court.

Speaking at the time, Starmer, of Marshall Street, Woodgate, Leicester, said the incident was "horrific".

She wrote on Facebook: "My 9.5 month old daughter started crying, needing a feed and the queues were pretty long, so to save my daughter the upset, and the other customers too, I decided to find a quiet spot out the way of others and feed her discreetly.

"Within five minutes of doing so, I was approached by a security guard who asked me to vacate the premises to feed my daughter.

"I stood my ground and stated my rights, that I can legally feed where I want.. Just for the security officer to physically remove my daughter from my breast and walk down the store with her, saying if I wanted my daughter, then I was to come and get her.

"My confidence is shot, and my poor daughter hasn't been herself all afternoon."